


a debt repaid in full

by spaghettirobot



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23166391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaghettirobot/pseuds/spaghettirobot
Summary: Her name is Ophelia Mardun and Beau is definitely out of her depth with this one. This really should have been one of those think first, follow later type of situations.Prompt fill for scholaroftrivia
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Ophelia Mardun
Comments: 3
Kudos: 35





	a debt repaid in full

Beau fucks up.

It’s not a complete shock if the first 21 years of her life are to be believed but still, Beau never saw it coming. It really speaks to a shortsightedness that doesn’t really give her credit for how competent she really is. Beau and Tori get too comfortable being criminal in a tavern that’s apparently not shitty enough to ward off the local guard.

Tori got away. She never even looked back to see if Beau managed to escape as well. Beau supposes that’s one way to get dumped.

So now she’s here, living with her own bad decisions. Her numerous and varied bad decisions.

In all of the books she read in her father’s extensive library, Beau always imagined being locked up as some sort of grand gesture of penance and remorse. Instead it’s mostly boring and she’s mad and already exhausted by the lecture she’s going to get from her parents. Is that a thing? Can you be pre-exhausted with something? Beau thinks if anyone could make it a thing it would be her dad. He’s a ruiner, he ruins things.

She resolves to close her eyes and try to mentally filter out the smell of the small cell and the cell mates who keep staring at her like they’re deciding whether a fight might be more interesting than sitting around.

Sleep doesn’t come, her fight or flight instinct still pumping through her veins. After a while though her brain shuts down and becomes something more palatable to live with.

Sometime in the space between her conscious thoughts and zoning out, Beau hears the rattling of iron keys against the rusted lock. It clearly takes the guard a few jiggles to get it to work, Beau cracks a smirk at his obvious frustration. She opens her eyes and she’s not sure what she expected but it’s not what she sees.

Maybe she thought it would be her father’s painfully familiar disappointed face, here to bail her out and remove her from her youthful transgressions once and for all. What she didn’t expect is one of the hottest people she’s ever seen, period. Beau thought her family had money but it’s clear from the fine material and expensive jewelry that this woman has a completely different level of wealth.

Beau looks to her right. The only person left is a scraggly little halfling woman with teeth that are either missing or rotted out completely, she doesn’t so much sweat as ooze alcohol vapors out of her pores. More power to her, Beau thinks as she closes her eyes again.

“Lionett!” The guard raps three times against the bars leaving Beau’s ears ringing. “You have friends in,” He pauses to fully lean into his personal disdain. “High places.”

Opening her eyes again, Beau does a brief re-evaluation of this woman through a completely different lens. Tiefling woman, charcoal grey skin, two regal horns that curve up into an intimidating looking point at the apex, long dark hair that falls to the tops of her ankles. Beau doesn’t know how tieflings age but the way she carries herself Beau would guess she’s more than a decade older than Beau - whatever that means.

Either way, she doesn’t look like the kind of person who wants to spend any extended time in a dingy cell in the bad part of Kamordah. Which begs the question why she’s here and why she’s here for Beau but she weighs her options and being kidnapped by a definitely hot, possibly evil tiefling sounds a lot better than listening to her dad.

Beau stands up and follows.

***

Her name is Ophelia Mardun and Beau is definitely out of her depth with this one. This really should have been one of those think first, follow later type of situations.

It’s not a threat but it’s not really a great choice either. Turns out, as tends to happen in these sort of situations, Beau and her little crew extorted the wrong Shady Creek Run crime lady boss. So now Beau has the option to pay the amount she screwed over Ophelia’s people or work for Ophelia and put that ‘inconveniently effective tongue to good use’. Beau’s pretty sure she didn’t have to say it like that but that also sums up everything you need to know about Ophelia in one weirdly sexy threat.

Beau actually does think about it this time. Her father has the money, that much she knows for sure. But it’s not so easy to crawl back to their family estate and supplicate herself in front of the man who always told her eventually she’d be a screw up who would cost him big. Actually, asking him for the amount of money she would need directly validates that notion.

Stuck being her gigantic tool of a father and a life of certain intrigue and danger as the associate of a dangerous crime lord, Beau makes the obvious choice.

And that’s how Beau learned to stop thinking so much and join the mob.

***

At first it’s terrible. Ophelia seems intent on making an example out of Beau to every competitor that even dares to think they can share the same air as the great Ophelia Mardun. Beau does a lot of groveling at the feet of Ophelia, sometimes literally which unsurprisingly awakens some things that get her through the first tough months.

A small part of her wonders if her parents are out there looking for her but after a year passes without the cavalry sacking the castle, Beau figures her disappearance might have been a relief after all.

It gets better once Beau proves herself to be less one hit wonder and more wunderkind. Not that she’s a child, she’s 24, that’s a full grown human adult thank you - not that it gets the snooty half elves to quit fucking with her but beating the crap out of them works just as good.

Beau proves herself to not only be skilled in the art of deception but she’s pretty good at investigating as well. Once Ophelia figures this out she starts to bring Beau closer and closer under the vest. No longer does she have to endure the song and dance of being made an example of, now she’s the exemplar.

Ophelia starts to take Beau to the important meetings with the task of watching everyone but Ophelia. Beau finds that task particularly daunting because look at Ophelia but she knows if she wants to still have eyes to see she needs to focus on her task.

It doesn’t make it any less difficult.

***

They’re traveling outside the boundaries of Shady Creek Run, returning from a particularly confusing visit to the Gentleman - the meeting went fine but Beau had to watch Ophelia crawling all over him as she stood guard.

That’s a new thing they do. Ophelia’s a beautiful woman and accordingly has lovers everywhere they go. In the last few months, in addition to Beau taking over the books and going to every meeting with Ophelia she also keeps watch during these trysts. It used to be this half-orc whose name Beau could never quite remember but he’d left to go run her business down in the Menagerie Coast. Of course Beau heard the whispers that he was her closest lover and that he’d been cast aside in the form of a promotion because Ophelia’s eyes had wandered.

Beau hasn’t been able to get the image of Ophelia locking eyes with Beau over the Gentleman’s shoulders, she probably should have turned away or something. But Ophelia told her to keep close watch, Beau feels like she was supposed to do what she did. Ophelia has said a word about it either way and it’s driving Beau to the point of distraction - well, almost. Beau would never truly leave Ophelia vulnerable, not with the trust she’s earned with her blood and sweat over the years.

Peeking out the window of the carriage, a tingle, no, a chill runs down Beau’s spine. Something isn’t right. Nothing looks out of place but that’s exactly what’s out of place. There’s always chaos right outside of Shady Creek Run. But nothing, not even a bird.

“Ophel-” Beau starts when an explosion of arcane energy hits underneath the carriage and the ground beneath them rolls like it’s been hit by an earthquake. The carriage tips precariously onto it’s right two wheels. Beau hears the yoke between the horses and the carriage snap with a sickening crack. The carriage slams onto it’s right, splintering the door and narrowly missing impaling Beau through the stomach.

She’s flat on her back, staring at her almost death when another blast hits the carriage and this time Beau processes the smell of sulfur before she feels the heat of the fireball.

“Fuck,” Beau whispers as she instinctively rolls over to cover Ophelia’s body with her own. The fire licks up the sides of the carriage and the wood starts to catch. “Fuck!”

Beau rips the cravat from around her neck, god, why are they still wearing their fancy dress from this morning’s meal. She puts it over Ophelia’s face and starts kicking outwards towards the front opening of the carriage. It’s their best shot and even if Beau doesn’t make it out, she knows Ophelia must live. That’s her duty. Beau has honored that faithfully since the moment Ophelia bailed her out all those years ago.

She won’t fail now.

Through sheer force of will Beau breaks the opening for them but not before the sudden influx of air causes blowback that singes the skin off of Beau’s left arm. She looks down and Ophelia is still breathing but choking on the thick black smoke engulfing the carriage.

Beau knows if she can get Ophelia to open space and oriented properly she’s far stronger than Beau will ever be. But the initial shock of the ambush and the fire has Ophelia more off her game than Beau’s ever seen.

Once they’re on the outside Beau takes stock of their situation. The lead carriages are completely incinerated, the guards onboard more than likely dead. Then Beau sees something that makes her blood boil. That cracked lipped, yellow toothed poor excuse of a man Lorenzo has the sheer gall to make an attempt on Ophelia’s life.

The Iron Shepherds will pay in blood.

Beau takes the rapier she keeps sheathed to her side out and charges Lorenzo’s wizard. She leaves Ophelia behind a rock to gather her bearings. Beau doesn’t have magic, she doesn’t have anything special about her except for her devotion to her charge and a bloodthirsty will to fight to the bitter end.

The next few minutes pass by in a haze of blood red.

When the dust settles Lorenzo has fled back to his aptly named Sour Nest, Beau is certain about that. Beau stands over the dead body of his wizard, she takes a dagger out of her bag and painstakingly begins the process of severing the head from the body. If she knows Ophelia she’ll want this as a trophy and a warning and a promise.

Ophelia.

Beau looks up and sees Ophelia standing maybe five feet from her, this look on her face that tells Beau - as intuitive as they come - that nothing will be the same again.

That night, for the first time, instead of watching over Ophelia’s bed Beau shares it.

The next night, they storm the Sour Nest and place the heads of the Iron Shepherds on pikes around Ophelia’s property as a warning to anyone who dares make an attempt on Ophelia Mardun’s life ever again.

Every night after that Beau stays at Ophelia’s side, as reverent as she is revered and all is as it should be.

***

Beau thinks about what her life might have looked like if she was a bit smarter in her early 20s. Maybe she would have finally made her father proud, taken over the family business, and been the perfect legal wine magnate. Gotten comfortably rich, let go of her sick abs, and faded into the annals of famous businesswomen in Exandria.

Or maybe she might have told her father to fuck off and made a name for herself. Perhaps as an adventurer or a sea captain or something equally cool.

There’s grey in Ophelia’s hair now, years after it crept up into Beau’s temples. Beau turns the page of the ledger as she refreshes the candle at their bedside. The Mardun Empire hasn’t had a legitimate peer in years and any young buck with a hope and a prayer joins them or dies.

Beau thinks about the choices she made in her life. She listens to Ophelia mumble about territory and residuum acquisitions in her sleep. It has never been easy, Ophelia is still as likely to fight her as to fuck her but Beau wouldn’t have chosen an easier path.

This has been way more fun.


End file.
